After a decade of wrangling, city officials are about to learn how much it will cost to displace residents of the De Anza Cove mobile-home park on Mission Bay. In turn, residents will find out if they will get monthly payments or a lump sum to be forced from their homes. Photo by Don Balch

After a decade of wrangling, city officials are about to learn how much it will cost to displace residents of the De Anza Cove mobile-home park on Mission Bay. In turn, residents will find out if they will get monthly payments or a lump sum to be forced from their homes. Photo by Don Balch

How much and how often the city must pay residents of De Anza Cove mobile-home park to relocate following a decade-long court battle is in the hands of a Superior Court judge.

Judge Charles Hayes is expected to decide soon what the city should pay mobile-home park residents in relocation fees.

The process of trying to remove residents from the 75-acre park on prime real estate jutting into the water in Mission Bay Park west of Interstate 5 was initiated by the city in 2003.

Ultimately, the city reached a $3.6 million settlement agreement on one of three lawsuits involving current and former residents of the 500-unit De Anza Cove Resort mobile-home park.

The settled dispute stems from the treatment residents said they received by a management company retained by the city to run the day-to-day operations of the park after the prime bay-front real estate was taken over by the city in November 2003.

De Anza residents claim strong-arm tactics were used by the city to coerce residents to leave, like overly strict security measures and multitudinous speed bumps, high-intensity Klieg lights and barbed-wire fencing throughout the property.

It is yet unclear whether the judge will order the city to offer up monthly payments to residents, as it is seeking, or whether the judge will mandate the city to pay a lump sum to residents up front.